Blessings in "the skies"

One particularly busy day, when the phone rang continually at the office and one problem after another presented itself, I watched in awe as one of our nurses calmly talked a patient caregiver through a medication increase, explained for what seemed like the 100^th time about the disease process, and coordinated getting a nurse and aide out at a particular time to the next day to accommodate a change in the normal routine. Even as a “non-clinical” hospice staff member,  I sometimes feel like a juggler, trying to keep all the balls in the air from ordering medical equipment, contacting field nurses with urgent messages and making sure that everyone has the necessary patient information, updated phone numbers etc. to make them efficient and organized.  There are days that I feel like a dispatcher.

Over the years, though I have not been involved in the patient care, I feel as though I know every single patient through our nurses and other staff who do see the patients.  I feel as though the reason God place me in hospice is to be a support person for our team.  I have always been a glass half full, positive person and I believe my greatest gift is the gift of humor that I have been blessed with.  As a part time stand up comedian, mostly doing fund-raisers and benefits, I have a unique outlook and a keen sense of timing in regard to sharing that humor.   I can make someone laugh when they are in their darkest place, if it’s an appropriate thing to do.  Sometimes, in the seriousness of what we at Hospice deal with on a daily basis, I feel like it is my role, my duty and my calling to remain upbeat, when hearts are hurting and tears are falling so that I may minister to those around me.

So many times, after the passing of a patient, a family member will talk to us about how wonderful our staff was during the hardest period of their life, losing their precious family member.  They will talk about how calmly a nurse dealt with a pain crisis, or how professional they were when dealing with the actual death and being the support for them at that time.  What they don’t see, is the impact that those losses, those crisis’s have on our staff.  They don’t see the tears that flow when the nurse gets in their car to drive home or back to the office.  They don’t see the tears that glisten at the surface when a staff member is talking of a particularly poignant family moment they were blessed to witness.  They don’t see the tears I shed sometimes when I get off the phone from taking a referral from a distraught family member and reliving my own hospice experience with my mother years ago. 

What families may not know is that every single morning, the start of our day begins with scripture and prayer for our patients and their families.  Sometimes we lift particular needs.  Always, we pray that our staff be given the tools they need that day to minister to those families and patients.  One particular morning, we were short staffed and the phone rang every time we hung up.  We would get one sentence of our scripture reading read and be interrupted by a phone call.  And every time the phone rang, one of our staff would call out “another of God’s opportunities”  to whoever got up to answer the call.  And indeed it is.  Every call we get, whether we are ultimately able to help or not,  every conversation is an opportunity.  My favorite saying is one by Oswald Chambers “

“You are born into this world and will probably never know to whose prayer your life is the answer. “

We hear that a lot in Hospice.  Your Hospice, your nurse, your social worker, your home health aide was an answer to our prayer.  When encouraging someone to volunteer for Hospice I often tell them that.  Sometimes God places an opportunity to serve in your path because you are the exact person needed.  Sometimes God sends us a message through the unlikeliest of circumstances.  That message sometimes is “It’s not about me. It’s about others.”  God has commanded us to love our neighbors.  My neighbors aren’t just the people I surround myself with.  My neighbor is the homeless, the heartbroken, the hungry, the Hospice patient, and the guy who just flipped me off because I didn’t accelerate fast enough when the light changed.  .  My neighborhood is vast.  It includes all of God’s people, even the ones are difficult to like, let alone love.  God sends people into our lives and into our surroundings to teach us, to challenge us and to correct us.



What makes a Hospice worker so good at their job is not years or training, or the amount of money they make.  What makes them good at their job is their heart.  Everyone I have ever known that starts at Hospice and finds it a  good fit has a heart that is,  as the Grinch found his to be after growing 3 sizes,  one size bigger than normal.  It takes a big capacity for Love to be able to be a Hospice worker. 



Love is not a sentimental feeling.  Love is action. Love is an action that will interrupt my schedule, risk my reputation, spend  my money even for a stranger so that I can show him love.  Love is a compassion that feels, care that involves and commitment that endures.  Love is going to whatever length necessary to help the hurting.  Love for people is the overflow of a love for God.  Loving my neighbor is not just a good policy, not just being socially appropriate.  It is visible evidence to others of my love for God.

When my boys were little I would often use the term “blessing in disguise”.  It was my way of looking at every less than great situation and trying to find the positive. One day we were out in the yard and Andy was about 3 and he was looking up at the sky as if searching for something. I asked him what he was doing and he said “mama I am looking for those blessings in the skies like you said.  What a great memory I have of that and I smile every time I say it now and think of that precious little face and voice. 

I’ve seen it so many times over  my years in Hospice.  A family who is completely stressed out, overwhelmed and unable to think straight when they come on board. Gradually, as they get the support they need, they are free to spend the last days, weeks, months with their loved ones doing the end of life work that needs to be done in regard to saying goodbye, healing relationships and making decisions. Being a part of that support, albeit small in my role as an office manager, means the world to me.

A little boy was praying one night.  When he was done, he got up and hugged his mother who was standing near by.  “What was that for?” his mom asked because the little boy usually just crawled into bed after his prayers. “ I know Jesus loves me “he said.  “And I know you love me like Jesus.  And sometimes, I just need to feel Jesus with skin on.”

Sometimes we  are Jesus with skin on for our patients and sometimes our patients are Jesus with skin on for us.     

And through the years, as 100s of patients stories have been told through our staff, I have realized that just as every individual is unique, the circumstances and their passing from this life is unique as well.  One thing  that they all have in common though is the need to leave this earth feeling at peace.  Sometimes a patient will linger long after the physical condition they are in would normally have taken their life. They usually have “unfinished business” we like to say.  A person they want to see again, words of forgiveness they need to hear or say.    In fact, one author outlined 5 things that need to said before a person goes on.  I love you, I forgive you, Please forgive me, Thank you and Goodbye.  With the exception of the last one, all of these things should be said on a daily basis if needed.  Life would be a whole lot better for most of us if we said those things more often.

Gone but not forgotten.  I’ve heard that said many times and I’ve found that to be true.  The people we love and lose are always a part of our lives in some way. The field we have chosen is one of frequent loss simply because of what it is.  But it is also a field of tremendous gains as we go about making a difference in someone’s life.  More often than not, it is theirs that changes ours.